Linux used to boast that it was light on resources and was better for older hardware, that's still true with some of the specialised distros, but the general Ubuntu and Fedora based distros are now as resource hungry as Windows is, if not more so in some cases.

The advantage with Linux is that you can build an extremely compact, fast and efficient system if you are that way inclined. Something that really isn't possible with Windows.

The thing is though, stripping out code from here and there and re-compiling kernels just isn't for most people, so the Linux based desktop (and server!) distros have really taken off.

As you've noticed though, if you create a distro that mum can install on just about any hardware out there and you include the software that the family need to make a computer useful......... you end up with a system that is large, bloated, contains a ton of unnecessary stuff, resource heavy, receives too many security updates, etc. etc.

You can use an RTL chip based dongle with an android device via the USB "on the go" port to:

listen to about 25-1700 MHz, analogue modes (AM/FM/SSB/CW) with a visible spectrum of around 2MHz (SDR touch)

listen to HF in analogue modes by using an external up converter between the HF antenna and the RTL dongle , or a custom
dongle with the upconverter built in. (again the app you use would be SDR touch)

Listen to Broadcast FM, DAB and DRM transmissions (via an upconverter for DRM) using Wavesync Plus

Watch the position of overflying aircraft on a map by decoding the ADS-B radar responses on 1090 MHz (ads-b on android by unknown)

There are other ham radio apps that let you tune other peoples HF radios , listen to american scanners, and so forth, but they
have no "local" radio interaction.

Presently to listen to D-Star, to the best of my knowledge, you have two options:

A scanner with a discriminator tapped mod (easy) feeding a linux PC running DSD 1.7 or later (thats linux DSD not windows DSD / DSDplus) or

A dedicated and expensive ICOM radio.

its possible that GQRX can "pipe" audio into DSD 1.7 ? ive never done it so I cant answer honestly.

Now, on Windows you can use a virtual audio cable package to feed audio from a radio dongle programme into DSD for windows or DSDplus for windows and recover digital audio from a number of modes like DMR , P25 , Nexedge, but sadly none of the windows DSD/DSDplus apps currently
demodulate D-Star - they only display the signalling traffic (boring and repetitive in the extreme!)